More CNY goodies

From Baker's Story:


Pineapple tarts and Hae Bi Hiam for MIL

The HBH is extremely good...I took one bite from their sample jar and was hooked!


HBH and biscotti for my coffee break

The festive air of Chinese New Year (2)

Celebrating festive occasions is never complete without food, and there probably isn't more eating and drinking on any festive occasion than CNY!

These are just a teeny, weeny sampling.


Pineapple tarts from the cake shop; got lots of pineapple filling and very little pastry...I like.

Even before CNY starts, we start eating and sampling already. Who can resist those yummy CNY goodies that appears so abundantly during this time? Hehehe!


LCG bak kwa - this is NOT my favourite brand, but my father likes to go and queue up for hours just to buy kilos of burnt bak kwa *roll eyes*

I threw all these burnt bits and pieces away....lousy, lousy, lousy LCG bak kwa!!

It took a lot of resistance so that I could take home less of it...coz still on diet. Actually, my fave bak kwa is the brand with the "Ah Pek" face - Kim Hock Guan.


Pineapple tarts from Spud's mom...hers got more pastry than pineapple filling has a milk powder taste in the pastry.

More yummy goodies from Spud's mom - Kueh Lapis. :)



I have yet to really buy the goodies, and I think it's better not to buy too much, or else we'll end up having to eat them ourselves later or throwing them away.

The festive air of Chinese New Year (1)

Tung-tung-tung ciang!
Tung-tung-tung ciang!
Tung-tung-tung ciang-tung ciang-tung-ciang!



Pretty lion set up by the stallholders at the shops nearby



More grand this year



Another pretty lion above!



The stall sells mostly the stuff for Chinese festive prayers and CNY decorations




Elsewhere, there are pretty, pretty flowers sold at the DIY shop



I can never resist putting them near my nose to take a whiff...be they flowers or soaps, or toiletries. :P



The flowers give out a very strong perfume!



So they're from the Hyacinth family.

Lovely!

Endangered species of the epicurean kind

Heh heh heh!

Temptations for KSN?



I found them today...can you believe it?

I remembered your "gian-ness" for Maling luncheon meat, and decided to drop by at the provision shop.



They are newly-produced.



We can have a party, but hor, see how much fat there is!?!



怕了吗？

Apparently, this shop I bought from has a "special connection" with the supplier and hence they could get these limited cans. There were only a few cans left, and I grabbed 4 cans only ...coz I was very loaded with stuff already (plastic rack to make cat condo, packs of plant fertilisers, new cat bed, cat grass boxes, etc.) :P

Will find some way to pass a can to KSN...or if you happen to drop by for dinner at your friend's place, let me know.

Anyone else would like to have a can too?

:)

Nasi Bryani

I haven't been cooking dinner much lately, coz it takes too much time to cook for 2 persons than it takes for us to eat the meal!

So, I've been buying our favourite nasi bryani from Tekka Market.

Nope, it's not from the often-quoted famous "A" stall, but from this one which I find even nicer.



The mutton dum bryani is very good and the basmati rice used is light enough that the first time I ate it, I managed to eat up ALL the yummy rice (which does not happen often)!

Somehow, the mutton usually tastes more fragrant than the chicken, so mutton bryani is preferred.



Closed-up of the tender, flavourful mutton from an earlier batch of rice.



We enjoyed the bryani so much so that we don't ever want to eat those bryani from around our place.

Tekka market is due for an overhaul in May, so we won't get to eat the bryani till more than a year later. I just hope this stall will still be there when renovations are completed.

ps: I have been eating the bryani from this stall for quite some time, but only in Jan this year did I realise that their bryani was rated 4 chopsticks by MakanSutra, which means excellent. Glad to know I have good taste...keke!

;P

Miscellaneous food and snacks

Some of the foodstuff I'd eaten recently. :)

Fish luncheon meat, anyone?

This Ayam brand product came out just in time during the shortage of the very comforting Maling pork luncheon meat from PRC; comes in original, spicy and black pepper flavour (as shown). It tastes ok lah...that is, after piling on the butter, cucumber and tomatoes in a sandwich!


Taiwanese vegetarian stuff made of mushroom, from this emporium I discovered at People's Park Complex that imports lots of its own Taiwanese foodstuff. It tastes like 肉酱 (meat paste), and great with porridge, though a bit salty.




I've been wondering about the English name of this fruit for ages.


I've seen the supermarts and sellers calling it 太阳瓜 （sun melon?) and honey melon or honey sun melon. They're really good, sweet and crunchy when in season (which this one is not; skin too thick) and cheap too (when in season). It's my 2nd fave fruit after the Hamid melon which we ate in Xinjiang, China (not the unripe, imported ones though).

I bought this pack of crisps at the ozzie section of "Aunty Lucy" mart when it was at the intro price of $2.95, and my, it tastes great! Best of all, it's baked and supposedly low in fat, so I can eat lots of it without feeling guilty (self-consolation only).



I've since bought 2 more packs in different flavours, but they're more pricey than even Kettle's potato chips, at $3.50 for 100g nia. I've to refrain from eating my fave Kettle's chips since I'm on a diet...coz once eat liao, can't stop!




A reprisal of my vegetarian aglio olio pasta...this time with less oil.



My fave Subway "cold cut trio" sandwich...which is great as a diet food dinner.



But I started to feel hungry around bedtime...which is a very dangerous thing...


I always ask for everything from the salad counter, plus extra olives...and usually on oregano parmesan bread, non-toasted please.

Spud's mom had just given me more of her home-baked goodies...will post next time. :)

Oops...there goes my diet!

Snacking at the office

My recent lot of office snacks which I have been munching on for the past week.

Dried Sakura Peach from CS, but made in PRC...



A titbit from Shanghai given by a colleague



Very powdery and rather sweet...




I remember the name Royal Dalton was associated with high-end, expensive fine bone China in the past, and thought these butter cookies would be just as fine.



Alas! There was hardly any real cheese flavour, and the cookies were hardly fine in taste or texture.

Note to self : Don't ever buy this brand again.



I also had these rather sinful desserts in addition to lunch this week. :PP

Chendol



I hardly eat chendol, but if I'm around the area, I will sure eat this from Tekka Mall's foodcourt. At $1.50 only, they give lots of kidney beans, at least 3 attap seeds (considered very generous), and the non-clotting type of coconut milk (although packaged).

I think this chendol is considered good among those sold at aircon foodcourts because I have a colleague who loves to eat chendol, so I've gathered enough "research data" from all those times she'd ordered chendol during lunch at different foodcourts. There's even one very expensive foodcourt which serves chendol without a single attap seed...tsk, tsk!




I tar pao-ed these Ah Balling (glutinous rice balls) in peanut soup today...yum yum!



My favourite are those filled with black sesame seed paste.



Apart from these snacks, I must have snacked on other stuff, so now I know where the weight gain had come from. :-( Okie...no more sinful desserts next week.

The pineapple tarts and CNY cookies are out in full force at the shops, and had I not restrained myself earlier, I would have succumbed to my sudden craving to eat the pineapple tarts. Jialat... cannot start on CNY snacks so early!

Wanna-eats

I saw this photos on the net which makes me wanna go there and try the food. It was the bbq squid that did it, so I'll make a note to remind myself. Heheh!


From Riverside Indonesia BBQ ($38 platter for 2-3 pax)

The person who took the photos also highly recommend the seafood ramen at Sushi Tei. Apparently, the soup was so....so.... ??? that he could not describe it with any available superlative.

Not even "superb"?



He said we must go try the soup stock to understand what he means. Hmm...

There's now a brand new, posh-looking Sushi Tei outlet at TP...maybe can drop by to try during the weekend, or right after a gym session in the same building! Arrghh!

I've just started going back to the gym yesterday evening, after a >2 month long break. Gotta burn off the excess weight gain...by CNY?

>_<"

Food tip: Sprouting tubers can't be eaten

From the Japanese curry & cabbage post, I realised I might have given the impression that I cooked the sprouting sweet potato in the curry. *Oops!* My apologies for the miscommunication. That sprouting "alienated" sweet potato was an old photo and I threw the tuber out afterwards.

Tubers (like potatoes and sweet potatoes) that begin to sprout conspicous eyes and shoots MUST NOT be eaten, as they can be toxic, according to traditional Chinese "general rules or principles" of food preparation and healthy eating. You know we always hear about how certain food is cooling or heaty, or that certain food should not be eaten with others or it may negate the positive qualities, etc. - these are "principles" that I'm referring to.

Another general rule that I distinctly remember is that green beans (乌龟豆 in Hokkien) and 金针(flower) (Kim Zarm in Hokkien) must be properly cooked for if uncooked, they are toxic if eaten.

The answer to "Guess the fruit"

Ta daa!!

Though the package says "Fresh fruits with syrup", I thought it was a mis-spelling, as I didn't see any syrup, what!?



I got a mild shock after it came out of the bag, coz I'd thought it was those Japanese sorbet dessert, coz the surface really looked like it; shocked because I had left it out on the table for several hours after I brought it home.

Then I thought: it can't be what...coz the fruit seller also didn't keep in in the fridge. *Phew!*



The inside was hard...



The skin had been peeled off, and the fruit soaked in syrup.
Ahhh...so, that's what they'd meant by "fruit in syrup"!



The skin tasted a bit like ...sweet, fruity, with a slight fermented taste...as if it had a tinge of alcohol...
I'm not sure if the fermented taste was supposed to be there, or the fruit had really started to ferment coz it was left outside of the fridge for hours!

I was a bit worried for my tummy after I ate it...



Anyway, just anyhow whacked it with some sour plum powder lah!



Verdict: It's got an interesting taste, and the white flesh inside tasted like normal fresh guava, though I'm not really keen on that syrupy exterior. I'm sure whatever syrup it's soaked in was sure to contain additives or preservatives.

So, I would still prefer to eat fresh guava fresh, without the syrup, but I would definitely dunk in into the erm...preserved sour plum powder...which er...in most likelihood, also contains preservatives and lots of salt. :P We choose our own sinful foodstuff, eh?


Guess the fruit

Easy Tiramisu

While on the subject of tiramisu (Spud & Tiramisu), I've been told (again) that it's an easy dessert to make, and from this food video, I guess it must be!

http://www.videojug.com/film/how-to-make-easy-individual-tiramisu-pots


By the way, Videojug is one of my favourite sites for food video and other funny stuff like "how to eat sushi in a Japanese restaurant"...that one is just so...so...ticklish. :P